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Julia,
A poem regarding suffering, and happiness, by Naomi Shihab Nye. Our dear brother Myozan first shared her poetry with us on the Forum, and I have been reading her work. Suffering and happiness travel in company, and not by coincidence. This poem speaks to me because of the big difference between the energetics of suffering, and those of happiness, which I cultivate in my emotional landscape. I'm sorry things are difficult. But things are indeed truly OK now.

So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records...

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

Deep bows
Yugen

-----------------------------------------------------------
Please take all my comments with a grain of salt - I am a novice priest and anything I say is to be taken with a good dose of skepticism - Shodo Yugen

I was just thinking this morning about what we would be like as a people if there was no suffering. No pain when we are hurt, no decline and death, no acceptance of the unknown.

I think we'd be pretty damn selfish. We already are, but even more so. I like everyone else gets caught up in trying to dull the pain and suffering we feel. But without it we wouldn't be what we have come to call "human".

Suffering allows for empathy and has much to teach us if we are willing to listen.

Deep bows.

Gassho,
Dosho (aka B.G.M)

Ordained Priest -In-TrainingPlease take what I say with a grain of salt,
especially in matters of the Dharma!

Suffering/happiness or ease/dis-ease- 2 sides of the same coin, but we can only see one side at a time.

Gassho, Shawn Jakudo Hinton
It all begins when we say, “I”. Everything that follows is illusion.
"Even to speak the word Buddha is dragging in the mud soaking wet; Even to say the word Zen is a total embarrassment."
寂道

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records...

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

Suffering is also to a large extent what we define as suffering.
The word dukkha has a wider meaning than the English expression suffering. It not only encompasses physical/psychological pain.
IMHO it can be boiled down to this: Reality is different from the way that someone wants it or expects it to be.
Person A wants to be rich, but has no money. This is also dukkha. However, do we need to be rich? I don't think so. But Person A might be dissatisfied.
And the same person might define dukkha differently according to his/her current state. If you are sick in bed, the only thing you want in life is probably to be healthy again. If you have a lot of pain, you don't care about money anymore - you only want to be painless, nothing more. As soon as you are healthy again, desires begin to grow and with this dukkha takes on another form.

IMHO the 8fold Path is a very effective way to recognize and avoid this (not entirely, of course).
Let go of attachments, accept things as they are, relax. Then we can help others. And helping others actually helps us. I am convinced that helping others is engraved in our "bones", because when we see another person deep down we recognize ourselves. Through the act of helping we connect and really feel that we are actually one, although we might not be conscious of this fact.

Suffering is also to a large extent what we define as suffering.
The word dukkha has a wider meaning than the English expression suffering. It not only encompasses physical/psychological pain.
IMHO it can be boiled down to this: Reality is different from the way that someone wants it or expects it to be.
Person A wants to be rich, but has no money. This is also dukkha. However, do we need to be rich? I don't think so. But Person A might be dissatisfied.
And the same person might define dukkha differently according to his/her current state. If you are sick in bed, the only thing you want in life is probably to be healthy again. If you have a lot of pain, you don't care about money anymore - you only want to be painless, nothing more. As soon as you are healthy again, desires begin to grow and with this dukkha takes on another form.

IMHO the 8fold Path is a very effective way to recognize and avoid this (not entirely, of course).
Let go of attachments, accept things as they are, relax. Then we can help others. And helping others actually helps us. I am convinced that helping others is engraved in our "bones", because when we see another person deep down we recognize ourselves. Through the act of helping we connect and really feel that we are actually one, although we might not be conscious of this fact.

Gassho,

Timo

Well said. In addition, people get caught up in thinking of pain as suffering, when the worst forms of suffering probably don't involve any physical pain at all. We have to learn to recognize suffering.

Neika / Ian Adams

寧 Nei - Peaceful/Courteous
火 Ka - Fire

Look for Buddha outside your own mind, and Buddha becomes the devil. --Dogen